


Master of Puppets

by Mercy_Rhyne



Series: Mercy's Bad Thing Happen Bingo [1]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Bad Things Happen Bingo, Compelling Voice, Fighting, M/M, Mind Control, Murder attempt, Unsympathetic Deceit Sanders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:21:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23896729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mercy_Rhyne/pseuds/Mercy_Rhyne
Summary: Roman and Virgil have been close for years. Platonically, romantically and professionally. They're inseparable both as partners and heroes. Can one fateful night change that?
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders/Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders
Series: Mercy's Bad Thing Happen Bingo [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1722406
Comments: 25
Kudos: 77
Collections: Bad Things Happen Bingo





	1. Pulling your Strings

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Compelling Voice  
> Warnings: Unsympathetic Deceit, mind control, mention of murder and suicide
> 
> Thank you for davidthetraveller for proofreading this one :)

For seven years, Cobra and Therian had been a famous superhero team. The people of Orlando could barely even recall the time when the two weren’t working together. Even if only one of them worked a case, the other would still be there, behind the scenes, helping the other out. There wasn’t much they didn’t do together. 

It wasn’t a complete coincidence that Virgil Bell and Roman Lokisson had been together for around seven years as well, that they lived together, worked together. Their friends couldn’t recall ever seeing one without the other in recent years. They were just madly in love with each other. Met on the job, found they got along and arranged to meet for real one day. The rest…well, the rest is history. 

It was a normal Friday night for the two of them, lounging in the living room with occasional banter between the two of them. Friday night was usually movie night for the couple — if they could manage to watch a movie without interruptions. They had planned to watch a movie, but as Roman had to take care of some things for his dayjob first, the couple had to wait a bit until that was done. Virgil had put on some music to entertain them in the meantime. But suddenly, their relative silence was interrupted by a soft alarm from the back of their living room.

“Your turn,” Roman called from his position on the couch, looking up for just a second. The alarm was a notification alerting them of criminal activity somewhere in the city — usually superhuman. Courtesy of their good friend and local genius, Doctor Logan L. Sanders. He grinned at his fiance, who put aside the book he had been trying to read for the past week with a groan that was only half genuine. “I did it this afternoon.”

Virgil rolled his eyes with a huff as he got up, walking over to the screen without much protest. “Says there’s a suspected robbery,” he said as his eyes scanned the information. “Two unidentified criminals, power signatures measured. Seems like a one man job.” 

He already started typing away on the keyboard, sending the location of the crime over to the GPS-system linked to his motorcycle, so he could easily get to where he needed to be. It would only take a few minutes to get there, luckily.

“Well,” Roman responded, hanging over the armrest to look at the other with a cheeky smile. “Good luck.”

With a soft scoff, Virgil turned to the closet behind him, opening its doors. “You better take the next one, Houdini,” he said as his black and white suit formed around his body automatically. Again, an invention by Logan. Saved them so much time. 

His suit was a light armour, barely carrying any weight. It was black with some white details, but nothing too flashy or out there. Just the way he liked it. Roman was more a guy for extra designs, not him.

“Yeah, yeah, will do.”

“You’re lucky I’m in a good mood.”

Roman stuck out his tongue. “Be careful,” he called out, eyes following his partner lovingly as he walked to the backdoor. 

“Always,” Virgil smiled. “Don’t think I’ll be long, so you better wait for me with that movie, Lokisson.”

“Of course, my dearest.” 

As he made his way over to his motorcycle in the back, Virgil sent his fiance one last fake glare, eliciting a chuckle out of the other, before he left. The route was already laid out for him, so all he needed to do was follow it. 

He drove away at top speed, maneuvering himself in between all the cars on the road until he got to the crime scene in a dark and dingy alleyway. Typical. Every criminal chose the same alleyways. Always the same. Not a single light in the alley seemed to be working, which gave the criminals the perfect cover. Luckily, Virgil’s suit had night vision, allowing him to see them anyways.

“Look, I don’t have a funny remark here,” Cobra spoke as he stepped into the alley, making his presence known to the two criminals, who were still there, as well as the alleged victim, who had crawled into a corner, making themselves as small as possible in an attempt to protect themselves from their assailants. Even though it seemed like neither one of them was intent on attacking any time soon. Maybe they had something else planned? “So let’s just get to the part where I kick your ass, right?” 

He reached for a dagger he carried on his thigh. It was lined with a sort of poison he was able to generate himself. Much like a poison dart frog, just a simple touch from him across the blade would generate enough poison to kill anyone that would come into contact with the weapon. 

“Oh, I don’t think you want to do that,” one of the criminals before him spoke up. Virgil recognized that voice, but it took a second to hit. However, when the hero seemed to freeze, unable to throw the weapon in his hand, he understood. 

The voice belonged to none other than the Puppet Master, a man capable of manipulating almost anyone into doing whatever he wanted just by saying it. But Virgil didn’t understand why their system didn’t recognize him. The two of them had been after the Puppet Master for ages. He was in their database; it should have recognized him. It should have alerted them to the presence of the Puppet Master. If it had, Virgil would have prepared for an encounter with this notorious villain. 

But when the villain turned around, Virgil found an answer to his question. Besides a bowler hat, the Puppet Master had hidden his face with a mask, not unlike Zorro’s. There was no way the database would have recognized the Puppet Master below that mask. In the light that fell upon him now, Virgil could just see the burns covering the left half of his face. But it was only barely; there was no way that their technology could have seen who this was.

“Now, why don’t you put that dagger away, before someone gets hurt?” the villain continued as he took a few steps closer. “Nice and quietly. And don’t go anywhere.”

Cobra gritted his teeth as his hand slowly lowered itself, sheathing the weapon once more. There was so much he wanted to say, but he was physically incapable of doing so due to the villain’s command. If the Puppet Master said something, there was no way for him to disobey it. He _knew_ there were ways of doing so. He knew that Roman could protect himself from the villain by drawing power from the rune on his ring — divine protection. He knew that Logan had customised the earpieces he and Roman used on missions so they would be able to block out the villain’s voice. But, seeing as he hadn’t expected the Puppet Master to show up, those earpieces were still back home. Right now, there was nothing he could do, not unless he found a way to fight the Puppet Master’s orders. But seeing as they hadn’t been able to figure out a way to break though… he was useless at this point. 

Smugly, the villain walked up to Virgil, the other two people in the alley completely forgotten as they locked eyes. The Puppet Master smirked as he stopped in front of the hero, content at finally being able to catch him like this. Cobra and Therian had been a pain in the ass for the past year and he had been planning, trying to find a way to take them out. No matter what he did, things had never worked out for him. Until he found out the root of the problem; when he showed up, they went into the fight _expecting_ him there. But if they’d go in expecting someone else… they wouldn’t be prepared. Looks like he had been right. He was able to overpower the hero easily.

“Now, I have a request to make,” he spoke slowly, looking at Virgil. He was sure to take in every single detail of this lovely moment. The last moment they would ever share. If all went according to plan, that is. “I know you know Therian. You know who he is, so I have only this to ask: you go and find him, wherever he might be, and kill him. After you have made sure he is dead, you kill yourself. That is all.”

Virgil just had a second to take in what the villain had said before his powers took effect, and everything went blank.


	2. Twisting Your Mind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Fighting, that's it I think

Contrary to what his name might make one assume, Roman was not actually Loki’s son. Roman’s father, Ingvar,  _ he  _ was Loki’s son. Which made Roman his grandson. But, as he was born in America, Roman carried his father’s last name nonetheless. 

Around his neck, Roman wore a necklace carrying a pendant with a rune carved into it. Algiz; connected to divine protection. He could draw power from this rune, enhancing his durability and even allowing him to heal his wounds. The ring on his right hand had two small runes on it. One was Uruz, associated with the prime creative force. The other was Kaunaz, associated with fire as well as Loki himself. These runes gave him his ability to shapeshift, as well as conjure up a small array of weapons. Besides the powers granted by these runes, his descent meant he possessed slight superhuman strength and durability, as well as a lower susceptibility for disease. 

As he waited for his fiance, Roman decided to get himself a drink, and maybe he could get one for Virgil as well. He’d be back soon, right? The job didn’t seem to be that hard, so with a little bit of luck, he would return soon enough and they could start their movie. 

Roman had just grabbed the bottle out of the cabinet when the door opened. He turned around and looked in the direction of the sound, a smile finding its way to his face as he saw his fiance entering. 

“Hey there, my deadly Cupid,” he smiled as he poured himself a glass of wine — instantly deciding to get a glass for Virgil as well. “How did it go?”

Virgil nodded as he closed the door behind him. “Pretty alright,” he responded. “Nothing big happened. Standard robbery.”

Almost immediately, Roman noticed something was off about the way his partner behaved. As the other walked further into the room, Roman studied him. Something was wrong, he just knew it. But what?

“Well, I’m glad.” Despite his worries, Roman grabbed the two glasses and walked over to the table, pretending not to notice how Virgil’s eyes followed his every move. “We can watch that movie then, huh?”

“Yeah.” Virgil stopped for a while, his hand twitching. Roman looked back at him for a second and noticed that it didn’t look like he was planning on taking off his suit any time soon. “Sounds like a good plan.”

His hand travelled to his hip, where Roman knew he kept his dagger. Then, in a flash, Cobra grabbed a dagger and threw it at his fiance, who was just in time to duck to avoid the weapon. Instead, the dagger embedded itself in the wall behind him. 

Yeah, this was  _ real  _ bad. What the hell happened on that mission?

“Virge, sweetheart, let’s talk about this, huh?” he tried as he jumped up, getting closer to his partner. He wasn’t scared of his fiance, of his powers or weapons. As long as he had his necklace, he would be fine. He would be able to draw power from the runes and heal himself. But Virgil also knew this. So he would have to be careful. “Surely, you don’t want to kill me?”

“You don’t know anything about me,” Virgil growled as he grabbed his second dagger and raised his hand in an attempt to stab his fiance, who just grabbed his wrist before the weapon would make contact with his skin. 

“Going through all the movie-clichés?” Therian asked, gritting his teeth as he tried to stop the dagger from making a scratch. “Now, I’m just disappointed.”

Cobra gritted his teeth and punched the other hero with his free hand. Roman let go of his partner’s hand as he lost his balance and stumbled back. Almost immediately, Virgil raised his dagger again. With his free hand, he grabbed Roman’s right hand, so he couldn’t clench his fist and draw power from the rune to shapeshift and get away from away. 

As he saw the dagger — and with that, a very unpleasant future — drawing closer, Roman panicked and kicked at Virgil’s ankles to throw him off balance. It hurt him to even do this to the love of his life, but it had to happen, for both of their sakes. He succeeded in catching Virgil off guard and as his fiance lost his grip on his hand, Roman yanked his hand away and made a fist. He turned into a fly, giving him the chance to fly away and land on a wall outside of Virgil’s range. This would give him the time to think of a plan without being scared that he would get hit by one of Cobra’s daggers. You could say a lot about Virgil, but his aim was not  _ that  _ good.

"Okay,  _ afi _ , I might need a little bit of help here," Roman muttered as the runes on his jewelry started glowing. Despite them not being visible in this form, he still felt them. He felt where they were supposed to be, at least. And he felt the warmth radiating off them as they started to glow.

After a second, an idea popped up in his mind, causing him to scoff slightly. " _ No _ , I'm not gonna kill him," he retorted indignantly, rolling his eyes. He should have known this would happen when asking help from the god of chaos. It always seemed to be Loki's first response to any problem. It wasn't usually serious, but still. "Stop telling me that and give me something I can  _ actually _ work with, will you?"

This was tricky. Going by the movie clichés, knocking someone out usually worked against mind control, but for once, Roman didn’t feel safe doing that. His life was on the line here; he didn’t feel like messing around. But it was difficult to think of something. Even Loki seemed to struggle, which was quite something, considering the god’s sly and quick thinking.

"I don't suppose you have a mind stone in your possession, huh?" Roman chuckled as he could feel the mix between annoyance and amusement coming from Loki at the comment — hardly the first Marvel reference Roman had made, but he couldn't resist it. "Sorry, dumb joke, forget that. We need to focus, alright?"

Finally, Roman managed to think of a plan — or technically… from the way it just popped up in his head, it was most definitely Loki and not, in fact, Roman. Basically- he had to find a way to override the mind control. He had to give him something stronger. And what could possibly be stronger than love? 

Also, Roman was never going to let Loki forget that he  _ actually  _ came up with a ‘power of love’-type plan. Never. 

“Alright, here goes nothing,” he muttered as he flew over to where Virgil was, still in his fly-shape. Only when he appeared behind Virgil, did he change back into his normal self, still channeling the Algiz-rune, to protect himself from his partner’s venom. 

“Virge,” he spoke softly, causing Virgil to whip around with a smirk. 

“Finally decided to come out of hiding?” he asked as he stalked closer, clutching the dagger closely. “None of your sneaky little tricks?”

“None,” Roman lied, allowing Cobra to come closer. Once they were close enough, Roman grabbed the wrist that held the dagger, pushing it away as he leaned in and kissed Virgil gently, wishing that this would work. “Come on babe,” he whispered as he pulled away, pressing their foreheads together. “I know you’re in there somewhere. Please…”

He noticed that Virgil, for just a second, stopped resisting his grip. And while he picked up resistance almost immediately after, it wasn’t so strongly. Almost as if he was confused. 

“Virge, please,” Roman tried, growing more hopeful that this might actually work. “I love you, babe. Don’t do this. Please. Just… come back, okay? I love you.”

Virgil blinked, dropping his attempts to break free for a moment. “Roman, what-” He shook his head, looking around in confusion, trying to come to terms with something. “Why…”

Before he could finish his sentence, Virgil reached for his head with his free hand and collapsed against Roman’s chest. Immediately, Therian released his partner’s wrist and picked him up, looking down at his fiance as he carried him to the couch. He wished furiously that Virgil would be okay. That the plan had worked and that there was nothing to worry about. But he also knew that there would be a chance that it wouldn’t be so easy. And if it hadn’t worked… Roman didn’t know what he’d do next. 

It took about an hour for Virgil to regain his consciousness. All this time, Roman remained by his side, praying that he would come out of this okay. When Virgil finally stirred, reaching for his head with a groan, Roman nearly jumped out of his skin. 

“Virgil?” he asked, moving to kneel next to the bed, so he could get a good look at his partner. “Babe? How are you feeling?”

“Like shit,” Virgil responded. Despite the situation, Roman couldn’t get himself from grinning. At least from the looks of it, his fiance seemed to be back to being his normal self. Not his mind-controlled self. 

“You need anything?”

“I don’t know, sleep?” the other shrugged, looking at his partner. “What ha-” Almost as soon as he tried to form the question, everything came back to him. He suddenly understood it. With a groan he his head turned away from Roman, wishing he could erase the memories. “Puppet Master.  _ He  _ happened.”

Roman frowned, taking Virgil’s hand in his. “Puppet Master?”

Virgil nodded, locking eyes with the other hero again. “Yeah,” he confirmed with a grimace. “He was there. Wore a mask to get around our facial recognition and told me to kill you. Then myself. That’s… what I remember.”

Well, that did explain things. But it also made things more difficult for them. If Puppet Master could find a way around their security systems… 

No. That was a question for future-them. Right now, Virgil was most important. He was here  _ now _ , and needed attention. 

“It’s alright,” Roman reassured him softly as he brought their intertwined hands to his lips, kissing the back of Virgil’s hand gently. “ _ We’re  _ alright, babe.”

“I’m sorry.” 

Roman leaned forwards and carefully pressed his lips against Virgil’s. When he pulled away, he took a moment to look into his eyes, getting lost in those gorgeous eyes once again. God, he was so in love with this man. He was just relieved that this was all okay. That they were both still alive. This could’ve ended to much worse for both of them.

“Don’t be,” he said softly, pressing a kiss to Virgil’s nose — a gesture that earned a small grumble. “It’s not your fault, Virge. I love you, yeah?”

Virgil managed a small smile, even though there were still so many thoughts going through his head. And none of them were good. But he quickly pushed those away as he stared into his fiance’s eyes. “Yeah,” he said softly. “I love you too.”

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is for the bad things happen bingo! If you want to request anything, you can find my card on my tumblr; kunnuglegur-tortimandi!


End file.
